Activities for Grades 3-5

  • ShakeOut Activities for 3 - 5

    Grades: 3-5

    By using the real life story of Kamome, a boat whose travels across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to California were initiated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, a concrete example is provided for students to explore, better understand, explain and prepare for these geologic events through the participation in classroom lessons designed to articulate with The Extraordinary Voyage of Kamome.    This activity is meant to augment California’s ShakeOut Drop Cover and Hold On Drill, held every year on the third Thursday in October. and includes information on personal earthquake kits.  It will take a minimum of one 50-minute session (procedures 1-4) or two to three 50-minute sessions for the entire activity.

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  • Origami 3 - 5

    Grades: 3-5

    Students will learn about the ort of origami and create a boat and a gull from the story about Kamome.   They will choose additional sea creatures to make and construct a class origami mural with their origami animals.  This activity provides students with a concrete experience of creating a part of the story.  In reflection of their work they will better understand the story of Kamome and Japanese culture.  Ten to 30 minutes per session.  An additional 30 – 45 minutes to make a class origami mural.

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  • Pasta quake magnitude 3 - 5

    Grades: 3-5

    This activity uses pies of spaghetti to illustrate the earthquake magnitude scale.  While completing an activity using bundles of spaghetti students will discover the difference in magnitudes of earthquakes from a magnitude 5 to a magnitude 7.   A magnitude 8 can be demonstrated as well, but takes bit more preparation work. The earthquake in Japan in 2011 which created the tsunami that travelled across the Pacific Ocean, as described in Kamome, was a magnitude 9.1.  The  Pasta Quake video https://www.iris.edu/hq/inclass/video/pasta_quake_modeling_magnitude_scale_using_spaghetti demonstrates a magnitude5, 6, 7, 8 and a magnitude 9 earthquake. 

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  • My Kamome Coloring Book Grades 3 - 5

    Grades: 3-5

    A coloring book with 27 black and white versions of the illustrations in the Kamome story allow students to directly engage with the story of Kamome through coloring and adding to the illustrations. Students will make their own illustration and caption to add to the story of Kamome.  It introduces how Kamome and other tsunami debris moved across the Pacific with a computer model, and the concepts of latitude and longitude.

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